Wednesday August 14, 2013 Alexandria Bay, NY

We left Grenadier Island early, a bit after 7:00. I caught the weather forecast from Syracuse NY and they were warning of high winds. It was really calm early so it seemed like a great time to go. Fortunately, Kerry is a good sport.

Quite a night, last night. About midnight we heard voices coming from a boat near us. There was a boat with a light shining on our house boat. We could hear a man talking in what sounded like French. We could not tell what kind of boat it was because the light blinded us – Canadian customs, pirate, whatever. It rather unnerved us I must admit. It was going back and forth, with no lights on other than a running light and the spotlight. Then the spotlight went off, and later back on. When it was off for good, there was another light on the deck, but no lights inside. I stayed up  until 12:30 watching what was happening. By this time the boat was not moving much. When we woke this morning we saw that it was the little motor boat that had been anchored on the other end of the bay. I suspect his anchor must have dragged and he was forced to re-anchor. The spotlight is a light motor boats have in their bow for anchoring. So it shone on us when he was headed in our direction. 

Culprit boat in the morning

It was a delightful trip to Alexandria, with pretty scenery and calm waters. We passed a freighter going down stream in the St Lawrence Seaway and snapped a couple of pictures.

We passed Boldt Castle on the way too.

We bought 10 gallons of gas when we got to Alexandria Bay and then bumped our way into the main city dock across for the gas dock. We are headed in now, but the dock boy says he can help us turn around at the dock tomorrow when we leave so we can head out. We called Customs to report back in to the USA and got a really friendly chap on the phone so it was a pleasant experience. Shortly after arrival a Border Patrol Agent came. We invited him on board, and once he knew we were legal, we had a nice chat about electronic charts, cameras, and internet cameras.

It’s kind of a rainy day now, and overcast. I hope it improves. In any case, we will be out and about once the stores open. We visited most of the stores and I was able to resist the 50% off T-shirts. When we came back to the boat I spent some time on the internet trying to update the blog, Kerry took a big nap. At 3:30 I went on a walk around the sea front while Kerry slept. Some bug bit her foot and it is a bit swollen so she did not want to do an extra walk.

Cocktails were on the back of “Leo”, our boat's name. Again rum and tonics along with pistachios and 5 alarm chili peanuts. (When will we run out of them?) Kerry caught up with Marty on the phone during cocktails.

Dinner was at the Dock of the Bay Restaurant which is right on the waterfront. We had a delicious Cajun pasta that we split. We took a nice walk after that and will now pass the evening reading, relaxing and updating blogs.

We like it here, but we like anchoring out better than docking. Next time we will just visit here (4 hours are free) and move on to another anchorage. Tomorrow we are going to the east side of Picton Island, which is still in NY. We will leave as early as possible. Of course I am fretting about how we will get this houseboat out of here without crunching some nice plastic boat, but that’s what I always do.

Remember the 4 people who took a houseboat out not knowing how to read charts or operate a boat. We meet them today. They are very nice and have survived, but with difficulty. In fact, they are going to come by tomorrow morning at 9:00 to help us turn this boat around. They need to get close to the houseboat return tomorrow night as their boat is due Friday at 9:00 AM. I suggested Beaurivage anchorage to them. We anchored there with Excalibur a couple of times.